Dreaming of Summer
by MiddayFiddler
Summary: There was a man once, but it was long time ago. It was summer back then as well, and she never thinks about him. /Accompanying story to Dreaming of Winter/


A/N: Written for Mitsuba's birthday (and, as always, being late), because I feel Mitsuba does not get enough credit as a character herself, since she is (although understandably) always tied with Hijikata. As far as my research went, Hino is the village where Hijikata Toshizou (and presumably his fiancee) came from.

* * *

It has been raining in Hino all summer.

She sometimes wonders if it means something. _Rain hardens the soil_, her old housekeeper used to say, bringing tea and medicine and another cushion to lay her head burning with ache and fever on. She does not need to harden any more, she would reply now. The housekeeper is long gone, though, so are the embroidered satin pillows, time will soon follow and the wind blowing through the gaps between roof tiles is not the best company. It carries moist scent of stagnant wood and hydrangeas and refuses to listen and refuses to answer.

She wonders about Sougo. He never writes during this time of year – too many thieves, assaulters and terrorists seem to take advantage of pleasant weather. She lets herself believe him. She wonders if it rains in Edo this year, too. He could come for a visit if that was the case, for a week, a few days. Just enough for her to see how much he has grown up and whether he has already started to look like their father. His photograph is in the northern room, the one where sun never shines and walls are covered with cobwebs and shadows and that gives her an excuse not to bring flowers and incense to his altar. She does not like looking at him. His broad shoulders, sharp jaw and sharper nose in contrast with tired eyes and pale, translucent skin. They were told he died as a warrior. She looks in the mirror and knows she will die a warrior, too.

She wonders about him, and their mother. She remembers her, petite woman with sand hair and dimples and soft hands that could beat students twice her height or repair leaking roof or broken fence. The roof is leaking again, it has been for a long time, but Mitsuba is not her mother. She tries to, but sometimes trying is not enough and there is no one to hold her ladder and catch her when she falls and bring her tea after she catches cold after nailing the tiles in the freezing rain. She used to do it all. First to her mother, than to Sougo and now it just keeps raining and she knows there will be no one to repair the roof, and the fence, and the torn paper sliding door.

There was a man once, but it was long time ago. It was summer back then as well, and she never thinks about him.

She thinks about herself instead. She does not find it selfish, or vain. After all, there are not many people who would spare her thought in their rainy seasons. She does not think about how things could have been – had she not fallen ill, had her parents been something else than photographs on shelves on opposite sides of the house, had her brother and everyone else she loved not decided to go and leave her alone in the half-fallen apart dojo. She does not dwell on dreams. She barely sleeps – she needs stronger medicine to stop coughing, but the town is too far to walk in rain, and the wind wheezes through the tears in the walls in night to wake her up.

She had already had her share of dreaming. The summer has gone gray and mouldy, the dragonflies died when the lake dried a few years ago and she is too old and fragile to have a prince come for her. She never dreamt about weddings before. It seemed just another mundane part of life she had no time to contemplate about. Then there was that man and she did not dare dreaming, because the man was gruff and unfriendly and thorny as the acacia bush in the back garden at first, and then because she saw through the thorns and knew he was too broken to stay. And she was right – he left as he came. No, that is not right- he took something with him. Her family.

She lies when she says she never spares him a thought. Or two. Or hours of empty, sleepless nights. She has gotten good at lying to herself in those years.

Like when Sougo's letters carry the tobacco scent. She knows her brother does not smoke – Kondou-san would write her a huge, messy letter of complaint if that was the case. She knows it is _him_; it must be, because he is the only one no one writes her about. He does not exist anymore, for all she knows – and he very well could not, with all they deal with in the city. Yet there is the scent, and if she dreamt like young women in afternoon soap operas do, she would think he started smoking because of her. She would believe that such a useless self-sacrificing pose fits him so well. She knows better though. Him giving a damn about her is now nothing but a dream. The one that crumbled like ashes from the tip of cigarette when he walked away, never to look back.

She wonders if she should have told him to stay.

She does not ask if he would have stayed. He would not; he was too honourable, too tormented and she loved him too much to make him watch her fade away like roses in the break of autumn. Summer was nice while it lasted. Maybe it never ends in Edo. She does not know; she has never been there, and has no desire to go. She is not needed there.

When she starts to wonder whether _he_ is now the one to resemble her father, she just shakes her head and goes back to listening to the rhythm of the rain. It is good; it does not remind her of anything.

It has been raining in Hino all summer. She wonders if it would stay this way forever.


End file.
